142 ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. 



use. The glass in them being always six or eight inches within 

 the level of the outer surface of the wall, sufficient shade is pro- 

 duced for beauty ; and so well is it sheltered, that wood, an 

 article much cheaper than lead, can be used for the glass frames ; 

 whereas were wood used for this purpose in the English style, it 

 would soon be rotted by exposure to the weather. Simplicity 

 in the design, and economy in the execution, are essential cha- 

 racteristics of every building in the cottage style : wherever 

 these are lost sight of, as has been the case in almost all orna- 

 mented cottages, and even labourers' houses, built by professed 

 architects, incongruity is a never-failing consequence. The two 

 styles described have been blended together, and the ornaments 

 of both bestowed with profusion. Thus we see projecting roofs, 

 and under them labels over windows which are sunk in the wall 

 as much as in the Scots style. In addition to this, we have 

 these walls covered (at least as high as creepers will grow under 

 the projection) with shrubs and trained plants. All this is use- 

 less and incongruous, and produces a degree of intricacy ap- 

 proaching to complexity, and totally incompatible with the 

 simplicity of a cottage. 



I pass over the modes of colouring ornamental cottages, or 

 of imitating the effect of decay, so frequently practised in the 

 neighbourhood of London, as altogether beneath observation. 

 In some of them the architect is to blame ; in others, the taste 



